CygnusX1

Sounds like you have heaps more natural talent for learning languages than I have. Only way I can learn a language is by intensive study of text - combined with recordings of course, but I’m memorising the vocab and grammar from the text, not the sound.

I might not be understanding you correctly, but I think most people would say that learning Thai through transliteration is not a good idea. There are so many different transliteration schemes, and the official Thai Govt one is frequently crazy. Take their transliteration “Suvanaphumi”, (สุวรรณภูมิ) as in Bangkok’s international airport, pronounced something like suwanapoom. Why use a ‘v’ instead of a ‘w’? Why use ‘i’ to indicate a vowel that’s silent in the Thai anyway? They use ‘ph’ instead of ‘p’ to show that it’s an aspirated consonant, but English speakers will naturally pronounce it as ‘f’, as in the notorious ‘Phuket’. I suppose the best scheme would be to use the international phonetic alphabet, but you might as well learn the Thai characters if you don’t know that already.

The ห character here is not pronounced, but is used as a sort of marker that changes the class of the ล character, so it’s pronounced something like “‘lung”, but with a rising tone instead of a flat tone. The website thai-language.com explains it all under the “‘reference” section. It all sounds very daunting, but I’ve found it way easier to learn to read Thai than to learn to speak it, which I can do only at the most basic level. When I had my air con installed, I spoke with the technician in English, as his English was much better than my Thai. However, I impressed the hell out of him when he gave me the manual, apologising it was only in Thai, and I began to read it out to him.

My brother-in-law was a former barrister. His reply to questions about any crime, rape or otherwise, was always the same - “I can’t comment, as I’ve not seen all the evidence”.

Whoever the Republicans nominated would have won in a landslide, as he or she would have collected the votes of the many Republicans who dislike or even despise Trump. No, no civil war. I still don’t think Trump’s guaranteed to win, although the odds have shifted in his favour. I have a bet with my far left sister, that if Trump wins, he won’t be leader 5 years from now, either as President for an unconstitutional 3rd term or as Supreme Leader under some other title. I’ve given her odds of 100-1. If she wins, I owe her $1,000, if I win, I get $10. I’m serenely confident that I’ll be $10 richer 5 years from now.

JIB wouldn’t accept my Australian credit card online. No problem using the same card at their physical store.

Yes, good comment. Also related to the idea of whether the human brain has a special ‘language organ’, or if language is just a consequence of the human brain’s power, or if it’s a combination of both.

Yes, I realise that, hence my point about the need for something as fundamentally different as the alleged lack of recursion in an Amazonian language to refute Chomsky’s idea of universal grammar, rather than relatively minor differences such as French’s notorious tenses and irregular verbs compared with Thai’s simpler verbs.

Struggling to learn Thai has made me more sceptical of Chomsky’s claim that all human languages, however different, share the same underlying grammatical structure. There’s a very entertaining book, “Don’t Sleep, there are Snakes” by Daniel Everett, about his life with a tribe of Amazonian Indians, in which he claims their language lacks recursion, which he thinks is a counter example to Chomsky’s theory of universal grammar. I find it curious that certain sections of the far right seem to be gravitating towards Chomsky’s bat **** crazy extreme leftist view of the United States as being the source of most of the world’s evil.

As I’ve said here before, I’ve always found the Russians who have been dominating Jomtien Beach during high season to be perfectly decent people, despite their utterly evil president. Mind you, as the only Russian language I know is “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Russian”, they could well be praising Putin to the skies, but I think they’re only at the beach as Thai sunshine is better than winter in Siberia. Very few Russians when I was last there a couple of weeks ago in low season, because there were very few people of any nationality. I think the controversy over the number of Russian tourists will soon be moot anyway, as the massive expenditure on Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is going to destroy the incipient Russian middle class, who were just beginning to be able to afford regular overseas travel.

Hope payment by QR codes will always remain optional, because I’ve never scanned a QR code and would have no idea how to. It’s just plastic or cash for me.

My point is that 50% above the normal fare was still crazily cheap by the standards of most other countries. I also always give baht bus drivers in Pattaya 20 baht instead of 10. They work so hard and earn so little. Thailand is a great bargain, travelling in Europe right now, and paying a couple of hundred dollars a night for hotels that would be more like 40 a night in central Bangkok.

I’ve never used Uber, beyond my technical ability, but Uber would have been less than $A25 for same distance in Australia?? For that distance, and with that amount of traffic, from my experience I’d estimate that an ordinary taxi in Australia would have been around $100. I’ve paid $60 in Australia for a taxi for a distance I could have easily walked without luggage, and I’d never consider walking to Suv airport from Phrom Pong! I’m in Europe now, and am doing my very best to avoid taxis unless absolutely necessary, whereas in Thailand they’re a practical and cheap form of transport.

Last week I caught a cab from the Suk Road tourist area to Suv airport. I happily accepted the driver’s offer of 500 baht, knowing it was around 150 more than a metered trip, and gave him a 100 baht tip in addition. WAY cheaper than a legally metered taxi in Australia, and I received a 1 hour free Thai lesson as a bonus (taxi drivers hoping for a tip are always very complimentary of my rudimentary Thai skills). Bangkok taxis and hotels are one of the world’s great travel bargains.

Sport them? Do you mean something like dropping them all in a large cage and letting them fight each other to the death?

Presumably, even if you were normally in Thailand the whole year, if you made sure to be there less than 180 days in the particular year in which you purchased the condo, you’d pay no tax? Anyway, in the light of the tax changes, it would be a very bad idea to buy a condo, I’d certainly not have purchased mine in the current environment of uncertainty.

Be careful, it’s 180 days, not 183. And safer to plan 175 days, to allow for unforeseen circumstances such as cancelled flights. Have already set up a spreadsheet to carefully count my days.

Just be aware that you’re unlikely to see the Himalayas from anywhere in Kathmandu itself, due to air pollution. Need to go on a short trek at least. Otherwise, you’ll just be seeing a dirty city with a few temples, and lacking Bangkok’s ‘nightlife’.

Until last year, Citibank was the exception. For many years, I used my Australian Citibank card to withdraw cash at Citibank’s ATM at Asoke, and there was definitely no ATM fee, also with a very fair exchange rate. Sadly, Citibank has now sold its operations in both Thailand and Australia to local banks.

There’s no way that can be correct. Surely once sufficient evidence was shown to police that you’re the actual owner, which wouldn’t take long to get, the illegal occupants would be immediately arrested for trespassing on another person’s property.

I was under the impression that after, say, 10 attempts, the phone would be irreversibly locked, and could only be used again after a total reset that would erase all data on the phone. Serious question, as if I’m wrong, I’ll be seeing if I can change the 8 digit numeric codes I have on my phones to something more secure.

“unless you choose otherwise”. You have to be careful here, for the ATM I used a couple of days ago in Bangkok, the outrageous DCC rate (dynamic currency conversion) was set as the default, and you had to specifically opt out to receive the proper rate. Your home bank may also levy a rip-off exchange rate (big 4 Oz banks), so it pays to arrange an account with a bank at home that uses fair exchange rates.

When I arrived at Suvanaphumi airport to have my 1 million baht 20 year elite visa affixed to my passport, I was driven to Immigration in a golden electric cart, with the attractive lady driver furiously blowing the horn to scatter the hapless plebeians threatening to impede my August progress. After the formalities at Immigration, I made my way to the far end of the ground floor of the arrival hall, to wait with those same plebeians for the next available bus to Jomtien, and have continued to do so on all future trips.

Well, I’ve owned a condo in Thailand for 5 years, together with a 20 year visa, and with a formerly planned 200 days in Thailand and 80 or so days in each of Europe and Australia, Thailand was going to be effectively my home more than anywhere else.

I’m in that category, but was too late to vote. Will be spending around 175 days of each year in Thailand instead of planned 200 or so. More of my money to be spent in Europe and Australia, less in Thailand.